After years of reading about the homesteading adventures of Countryside readers, it has finally dawned on me. The difference between the homesteading success stories and the  tales of smoldering ruin is that successful homesteaders are craftsmen/women. They didn’t choose a minimalist lifestyle; instead, they combined determination and knowledge to craft a way of life , a heritage.  A lifestyle takes money. A  way of life takes time.

Established homesteaders like Sue Robishaw of Many Tracks and my friends Roger and Ann from Confessions of a Tightwad, are masters of the craft. They know full well that homesteading is a gilded craft, requiring the knowledge of the ages to sharpen modern skills. In the pages of Countryisde, the words of sage homesteaders guide others through the often tenuous steps to mastering their own level of self-reliance. I’m often in awe at the personal mastery of the readers who write to us. They are willing to try, repeatedly, to forge a way of life that reflects who they are and what they’re doing here. If you want to know someone’s heart, simply look at the things they care enough to do for themselves. Homesteading isn’t about a lifestyle; it’s about personal mastery.

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Tags: homesteading, mastery